FUTURE TRADESMENAND EMPLOYERS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 20, 24 July 1945, Page 4

FUTURE TRADESMENAND EMPLOYERS

The -report of the Apprenticeship Commission, discussed in the House of Representatives yesterday, did not make any revolutionary proposals but dealt rather in a practical and commonsense way with ways and means of improving the present system. Undoubtedly there is room for considerable improvement, especially in ensuring that those youths entering trades have their training supervised efficiently and are also given the opportunity of gaining a good general knowledge of their- chosen trade. The proposal by the Commission that officers should be appointed whose whole-time duty will be to keep a constant watch on the interests of apprentices should do a great deal in achieving both aims. In the past there has been a tendency to regard the welfare of the apprentice as everybody's business —parents, employers, teachers, and tradesmen—and as a result it has often been in danger of becoming nobody's' business. Conditions obtaining in the various trades have undergone considerable changes in recent years. This is largely an age of mechanisation and specialisation, and this fact creates special problems in the training of apprentices. While it is possible that many youths will, because of a natural bent, become specialists in one phase of an industry, care must be exercised to ensure that their knowledge of the industry is not confined to that phase. Their training must be given the broadest possible base so as to equip them not only as efficient in one operation but to open a wider prospect for them as craftsmen and perhaps the employers of the future. Up-to-date technical schools, as well as employers, will have a responsibility in making such training available.